Illuminated by Love

A sermon given at All Hallows by Anna Davie on 22 February 2004

The readings were 2 Corinthians 3.12 — 4.2 and Luke 9.28—36

I expect most of us can relate to the way Peter, in this story, says the first thing that comes into his head because he doesn’t know what is talking about. Then he gets covered in a big black cloud and is afraid.

I can certainly relate to Peter’s confusion and fear. I suppose I used to think that once I had experienced insight, a sense of illumination and peace, then it would all be OK. I would never feel depressed or confused or despairing again. What’s interesting to me about this story is that the disciples do not react to the transfiguration with clarity or wisdom. They panic. They don’t know what to do. But if we are called upon to live a risen life, will we always know what to do? The story suggests that not only will we be lost in our feelings at times but it may be that spiritual realisation, truly seeing that transfigured, illuminated power of God, will often only happen in the midst of our stumblings in the darkness. That often it is at the times when we are most afraid that God speaks to us and shows us how to move on.

This morning I just want to offer you a brief reflection on that inner journey, that internal struggle with our own ignorance and wisdom.

Last week Ray spoke of the transfiguration as being about the nature of God’s power as expressed in Jesus and how God illuminates our path through the chaos and terror of oppression. This is how we face those seemingly overwhelming forces of hatred and exploitation, with love and faith.

In 2 Corinthians Paul was addressing a people in the midst of persecution. He gave them a pattern for facing that terror:

‘We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed.’

I think to anyone who has faced or is facing oppression these are beautiful words of encouragement. What I hear in these words, how they speak to me, is in saying:

‘It is OK to grieve, to feel your woundedness, to cry and rage and stumble in the darkness. You do not have to be destroyed by it or disappear into a pit of despair. It is true that they really are out to get you, but that’s why your friends and allies are so precious. However terrible it feels, you can survive it.’

In the story of the transfiguration, Jesus is illuminated in order that we might find our way in the darkness. Peter doesn’t know what he is saying, he falls back on old patterns, old ways of coping and of seeing the world, and he feels hopeless and afraid, but there is no sense of God judging him or us in the story. Instead God seems to be saying ‘just listen and be aware’. Do not try to construct hallowed ground, but be it.

In 2 Corinthians Paul talks about how it is our bodies rather than external structures which contain God. This is where God lives in us, however fragile, however breakable and broken we may feel.

When we face oppression, we can sometimes feel as though our bodies are consumed with hatred and rage. The pain of what we experience can sometimes turn the mind and body into a place of torture. Psychological and physical torture can make the body itself feel like an enemy — to the point where suicide seems almost logical.

When our enemy has reduced us to a spluttering wreck of furious misery, the despair often comes. We feel guilty and ashamed. We’re traumatised by what we have witnessed and experienced. We turn on ourselves. William Blake said:

‘Lest the last judgement come
And find me unannihilate,
and I be seized and given
unto the hands of my own selfhood.’

I can imagine Peter attacking himself for ‘getting it wrong’ about the tents. Maybe dredging up all his past mistakes in the process. I think a lot of us do that, don’t we? It’s like a court of law where we drag this offender and put him on trial. The judge has a great deal of power. It is rarely a fair trial. The prosecution usually holds all the cards.

Maybe that’s why the great spiritual traditions can be so helpful to us in how we deal with ourselves, because they directly address this issue in two main ways. Firstly, by encouraging us to love and forgive ourselves. To replace the judge with the illuminated Jesus.

The second method for dealing with the self is to forget the self altogether and be still, to stop thinking, to stop chattering and to allow the silence in which we can find God, our Christ-like nature, our Buddha-self, in which we can connect with a greater sense of who we are. The great spiritual traditions tell us that we are not who we think we are, and the spiritual path has very little to do with thinking or with building holy places. It has instead to do with listening to God in the silence of our hearts.

Carolos Castaneda’s shamanic guide Don Juan puts it this way:

‘You talk to yourself too much. You’re not unique in that. Every one of us does. We maintain our world with inner dialogue. A man or woman of knowledge is aware that the world will change completely as soon as they stop talking to themselves.’

Central to the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are the fixed beliefs we hold about who we are — which is sometimes described as ‘the body of fear’. When we live from that body we react out of habit and fear, instead of reliving the mystery of crucifixion and resurrection which is what as Christians we are called to do. In Buddhist meditation this is described as ‘learning to die before death’. St John the Divine says that true contemplatives must ‘die to themselves, and lose the radical self-centred awareness of our being, for it is our own self that stands in the way of God.’

We have to get out of the way in order to experience the transfiguration within ourselves, in order to recognise that illumination is our true state. The Christian mystic Silesius said …

‘God, whose love and joy are everywhere, can’t come to visit unless you aren’t there.’

It’s a great paradox, isn’t it? That in order to be who we truly are we have to somehow surrender ourselves, to not be.

This sense of surrender, I think, happens too in human relationships. If you think about love scenes in films, or if you are very lucky from your own life, very often one person will be chattering away and suddenly the other person kisses them and they are blissed out and lost for words. The chatter ceases. We are loved. We are found. I think this is very much what we are offered in the spiritual life, a relationship with God in which we transcend all that nonsense about ourselves, all that chatter about not being good enough and how scary and awful everything is. If we allow it to happen, God holds us and transforms us like a lover.

A Christian contemplative who has actively pursued a spiritual life for 30 years tells this story:

‘I had always been moved by the longing of mystics like St Theresa of Avila or St John of the Cross. I spent a year at a convent after a failed relationship and family troubles, I read their words over and over. I had the romantic idea that I was going through the dark night of the soul. But for me it never ended, there was no big experience, no mystical illumination at the end. When I left the convent and became a social worker, I kept up my prayer life and contemplative practice, but it remained ordinary and dark for years. Now I realise that I was somewhat depressed and lonely — nothing very mystical about that.

‘Then, ten years ago, I made a retreat with Father Bede Griffiths, a radiant old Catholic monk with an ashram in India. He had orange yogi-coloured robes and white hair, and deep joy beamed out of his being like daffodils shining after a long winter. We talked, and he told me that I had made up a whole story of how the spiritual journey should unfold. Then he held my face in his hands and beamed such love into me and said ‘Why not be your own unique self? That’s all God wants from you.’ And I wept and I danced and laughed at all I was trying to be. And now for years my life of prayer and contemplative practice has continued in its ordinary way, but I’m not depressed and I’ve come to love life. No great experience ever happened, but through loving myself, everything changed.’

Just being human can be very tough and lonely at times. Being human and struggling with the powers of oppression requires resistance, courage and faith, and none of these are possible, it seems to me, without love. St John the Divine said:

‘The love of the heart is the candle flame that carries us through the road of darkness.’

And St Theresa of Avila said:

‘The important thing is not to think much but to love much.’

We have to love these fragile clay pots we inhabit for this brief spell. Love all the thoughts, feelings, churnings and longings of the body, mind and soul. Love ourselves in our depressions, in the midst of our despair, in our rage, in our powerlessness, in those times when we don’t know what to say or say the wrong thing or chatter on because we want to fill the silence and run away from our sadness, our grief, and vulnerability.

What the story of the transfiguration and all the great mystical stories of transformation and illumination tell us is that if we allow it to happen, if we drop our limited small view of ourselves and open to that silence and listen to God, we can discover the beauty and mystery we each contain. Kabir, the Indian mystic, sings the marvel of awakening within the clay of this very body:

‘Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains and the maker of canyons and pine mountains! All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds and millions of stars. The acid that tests gold is there, and the one who judges jewels. And the music from the strings no one touches, and the source of all water. If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth: friend, listen, the Holy One whom I love is inside.’

When we are faced with the troubles of our lives and of the world around us, let us remember how we are illuminated by love. Even in the darkness it is there. The Spirit of God dwells in us, despite our doubts and fears, despite our self-criticism and judgements of others.

‘We are often troubled but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed.’

This page was last updated on Sunday, 29 February 2004

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